Elizabeth Merry began her April ’23 talk by recalling her childhood love of The Jungle Book and Kipling’s own illustrations with his bottom of the page signature Ark symbol. Kipling (1865-1936) was born in India to artistic parents. His father was an architectural stone sculptor, sent to India to preserve the local arts and crafts. His mother was an art teacher. They had met in the Midlands and courted at Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire and named their son in memory of happy times there.
Kipling had two sides to his character, one formed by his idyllic early years, looked after by an ayah in India and the other English side with an unhappy foster family experience in Southsea where he was shipped for schooling in England at the age of 5 with his sister Alison (Trixie) aged only three. They suffered emotional and physical abuse from the Holloway family. Kipling had become clumsy and was always walking into things due to his severe myopia. He was on the verge of a mental breakdown but things improved when he was moved to The United Services College in Devon. His book Stalky and Co. (1899) draws on his experiences there.
In 1882, at almost 17 he returned to India to work as a junior newspaper reporter and at age 22 journeyed to Rajasthan (NW India) to report back with wonderful prose descriptions of the forts, palaces and rural landscapes he saw on his travels, alone and by train. Elizabeth gave us some background history of the Mughal empire and Rajput dynasties, illustrated with very colourful and decorative slides showing the rich artistic heritage of Rajasthan. Kipling visited the palaces, forts and sights of Jaipur, Amber, Jodhpur and Udaipur. The palace at Udaipur is now a luxury hotel.
At age 24 he returned to England where he felt he could further his literary ambitions by being at the centre of literary life. His Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) had already been published.
He had an extraordinary career, travelling widely in America, South Africa and Australia and became a literary celebrity. The V & A exhibition (2017 – Lockwood Kipling: Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London) was mentioned. It highlighted the influential work of his father, artist, museum director, teacher and conservationist in the Arts and Crafts movement.
During question time at the end, his sometimes controversial, bellicose, and provocative nature was mentioned. It was noted that he was a man of his time and some of his attitudes concerning the superiority of the white man would not be acceptable today. His life also had tragic episodes with the loss of his son at the Battle of Loos in 1915 and the mental distress and confinement in an asylum of his sister Trixie. Kipling died in 1936 at the age of 71. His animal stories still bring joy to children everywhere and remain in print.
Our thanks to Elizabeth Merry for a most interesting and illuminating talk.
Lois Coulthart